


Damaged

by laurenkinn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:29:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7792330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurenkinn/pseuds/laurenkinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Castiel's sister, Anna, dies in a car accident, Dean has a tough time trying to make Cas feel better.  Cas spirals into depression.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damaged

**Author's Note:**

> I really struggled with the end of this fic, and I tried really hard to keep it from going the way it did, but the story was just dragging me along for the ride. I don't normally write things like this, so any kudos or comments are always greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!\
> 
> Side note: It is really late and I'm really exhausted, so any typos can be blamed on that!

It had been two weeks since Anna died.  Dean remembered very clearly where he was, what he was doing, and how he had reacted when he received the call.  Cas, his voice broken and choked, trying to hold back tears.  There had been some terrible car accident.  She was driving to a friend’s house.  Police had pronounced her dead on the scene, and Cas had lost his mind.  Dean remembered dropping his screwdriver and rushing out of the shop, hastily explaining to his boss that there had been a family emergency.  Bobby was always okay with Dean leaving early, but Dean felt like there still needed to be an explanation.  The drive to the apartment felt like slow motion to Dean, but he knew he was breaking the speed limit, and by a lot.  When he pulled in, he ran up to the front door and burst in, not bothering to knock.  Cas was sitting in the tub, slumped against the wall, water cascading over him.  Dean turned the shower off, grabbed a towel, lifted Cas out of the tub.  Cas clutched at Dean like a small child and sobs wracked his body as Dean carried him to the bed and tucked him in.  

“It’ll be okay, Cas,” Dean had whispered, holding the other man tightly.  But even Dean didn’t believe it.  Cas and Anna had been very close.

A few days later, after the funeral, Dean offered to take Cas to his favorite diner in town.  Cas had shaken his head, saying he had a headache and wanted to go home.  Dean had obliged, and instead cooked dinner in.  Cas refused to eat.

A week later, Dean took off work early to surprise Cas.  He picked up flowers, got them some ice cream, and rented a comedy from Redbox.  They had seen it in theatres, and he remembered how Cas had laughed until tears streamed down his face.  It seemed like a long time ago, almost another lifetime.  

“Come on, Cas,” Dean had pleaded gently with his boyfriend, “just watch it.  Remember the part where they go to the club?  You loved that part.”

“No, Dean,” Cas had said quietly.  “I’m just not in the mood.”

Two days later, Dean noticed how thin Cas looked.  

“Dude, look at you.  You’re actually Slender Man,” Dean joked, referencing the game Cas had played for a week straight a while ago.  “I could break you in half, if I weren’t scared of you taking me into the woods and killing me.”

“Ha ha, very funny, Dean,” Cas clipped.  They stepped into the shower.

“Really though, man,” Dean murmured.  “You need to start eating.  You’ve lost weight.  Don’t think I don’t notice.”

“I know, Dean,” Cas snapped.  “Do you think _I_ don’t notice?”  He scrubbed his scalp furiously.  “I’m just not hungry.”

Dean held up his hands in surrender.  “Sorry,” he muttered.

That finally brought them to now.  

On his way home from work, Dean got a bottle of fruity wine and chocolate from the store.  He noticed how the cashier chuckled at the bottle.  It wasn’t his fault Cas only wanted shitty, girly wine with barely any alcohol in it.  He figured if the wine didn’t cheer Cas up, nothing would.

“Babe, look what I got,” Dean announced when he stepped into the apartment.  He heard a groan from the couch.  Looking around, Dean squinted.  “Damn, dude,” he remarked.  “It’s really dark in here.”  He put the bags down on the kitchen table and walked to the curtains, opening them with a flourish.  “That’s better.”

Cas sighed and slowly rose from the couch.  “Dean, I don’t want anything,” he griped.  

“Tough love, baby,” Dean replied unsympathetically.  He glanced at Cas and pretended the bags under the other man’s eyes were just his imagination, and that the way the t-shirt hung off his shoulders was just because it was too big.  In reality, Dean knew that shirt had been a little small on Cas two weeks ago.  It had accentuated muscles in all the right places.  Now it looked like it covered more of a noodle than anything else.

“Why do you stay?” Cas asked quietly.  Dean turned around from the window and furrowed his brow.

“What?” he questioned.

“I said, why do you stay?” Cas repeated.  “I’m not fun to be around anymore, I know that.  I’m damaged.  I just- I’m tired, Dean, and I don’t know what to do or how I’m going to get through this.  I lost my only…” Cas trailed off, and from by the window Dean saw Cas losing his composure.  “I lost my sister.  My _sister,_ Dean.”  Tears started streaming down Cas’s face and Dean stepped over to him quickly.  

“It’s okay, baby,” Dean whispered, pulling Cas into a hug and stroking his hair softly.  He paused, unsure if he should delve into anything about Anna, but this was the first time Cas had said anything about it.  He had been avoiding the topic since it happened.  Even the pictures of Anna that had hung around the house were gone, taken down at some point while Dean was at work.  Carefully, he started speaking again.  “I know it’s hard.  It’s not fair.  We can never hope to understand why these things happen.”

“Why her, Dean?” Cas asked.  “She was so young.  I just want to know, why her?”

“Cas, you can’t beat yourself up with that question,” Dean scolded gently.  “Sometimes things just happen.  And they happen for a reason, even if we don’t understand it.”  

After a few minutes of quiet crying, Cas finally pulled away from Dean.

“You okay, man?” Dean asked, smiling and giving Cas a light punch on the shoulder.  Cas met Dean’s eyes and Dean’s smile faded.

“No Dean,” Cas replied quietly.  “I’m not okay.”

 

From then on, Dean saw a sharper decrease in Cas’s liveliness:  in the way he slept, ate, even walked.  The bags under his eyes grew darker, the eyes themselves more sunken in.  Their vibrant blue life before the accident had given way to a duller, flatter blue that Dean decided he did not like at all.  Every now and then, Dean could force Cas to eat a bite or two of something, but Dean noticed how Cas would leave the table and go to the bathroom; Dean ignored the sounds of the other man vomiting.  During the night, Dean could feel Cas get up and shuffle to the bathroom, then shuffle back out, eventually making his way downstairs to the couch.  It had become his sanctuary.  He claimed it was the only place he could sleep, but Dean heard the nightmares.  He was always startled awake by them during the night, the sound of Cas screaming sending him hurtling down the stairs only to find his boyfriend in a dead sleep, crying out for his sister.

Dean knew they were not in a good place, and Cas was not getting better.  Every attempt he made to make Cas feel better was almost immediately shot down with half-hearted excuses.  He was at a loss.  He felt defeated.  Every night, it got harder and harder to kiss Cas goodnight and watch him drift into an uneasy and fitful slumber.  

Almost four months after Anna died, Dean walked downstairs, already dreading another long day working.  He looked forward to getting off work more these days, just so he could come home and hug Cas, kiss him softly, search his eyes for the spark that used to be there.

“Cas, wake up, man,” Dean said groggily as he walked into the kitchen.  “What do you want for breakfast?  We’ve got pancakes now.”

Silence.

“Cas?” Dean asked again, opening the freezer and pulling out the frozen pancakes.  “You’re about to lose any choice in the matter.”

No response.

Dean frowned and put the box down on the counter, peeking his head over the bar at the couch.  Cas was there; Dean could see his shadowy form.

“Cas,” Dean said, a little sharper and louder.  There was no response from Cas, no movement, no groan of annoyance.  Dean felt his heart jump into his throat, a frightening coil in his stomach.  Slowly, he walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room, then quickened his steps to the couch.  For a minute, he didn’t know what to do, as he stood there over his boyfriend’s prone form on the couch.  Slowly, he knelt down and took Cas’s hand.  It was cool to the touch.  Cas had always been the cold one of the pair, digging his feet under Dean’s ass to warm them up during their Netflix binges.

“Cas?” Dean asked quietly, feeling tears starting to slide down his face.  He gripped the other man’s hand tighter.  “Cas, come on, man, don’t do this to me.”  He put his other hand on Cas’s shoulder and gave it a light shake, then harder, but nothing happened.  Panic rose in his throat and he gulped it back down.  He stood and ran upstairs, fumbling on the bed for his phone.  

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Yeah I think my boyfriend is- d-“ Dean choked, running back down the stairs.

“Sir?  Sir, what is going on?  Where are you located?”

“Uhh…I just- he’s not responding.”  Dean knelt down beside Cas’s still form, stood up, paced the living room, anything to keep his eyes away from…

“Sir, we are sending units your way.  I need you to stay on the phone with me.  Does he drink or use any drugs?”

Dean almost laughed bitterly.  “No, fuck no, he would never.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I have to ask,” the dispatcher replied.  “Does he have a pulse?”

Dean turned and looked at Cas.  “No,” he whispered.  The reality hit him like a ton of bricks.  This was really happening.

“Alright, sir, units are almost there.  I need you to unlock your door for them so they can come in.  Can you do that?”

“Uh…yeah.”  Dean moved to the door and unlocked it, then decided to just open it.  He could hear the sirens approaching, then watched the ambulance turn onto his street.  From there, everything was slow motion.  EMT’s jumped out of the truck, running past him into the house.  He could hear them shouting things in the distance, none of them really paying attention to him.  He didn’t expect them to.  He sank onto the front steps, hanging up the phone and dropping his head between his legs.  What seemed like an eternity later, an EMT approached him and put her hand on his shoulder as she knelt down in front of him.

“My name is Missouri.”  She paused, then gestured inside the house.  He’s your boyfriend?” she asked, and Dean nodded numbly.  The medic smiled gently.  “Has he been unwell?”

Dean nodded again.  “His uh.  His sister died a few months ago.  After that, he just kinda…”

Missouri nodded.  “I understand.”  She paused again, and Dean could tell she just didn’t know what to say.  Maybe she hadn’t been doing the job long.  “Honey, I’m sorry.”

Dean breathed out in a shudder, swallowing down the sudden wave of nausea.  In a way, he had seen it coming.  There had been no improvement, no recovery.  Cas had just declined and never come back.  

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Missouri asked Dean, rubbing his shoulder.  Dean shook his head but didn’t bother saying anything.  He had said enough in the past four months, and he felt exhausted.  He didn’t want to talk.  Missouri seemed to recognize it and stood up then walked to the ambulance.  Dean didn’t watch her, just like he didn’t watch as the EMT’s wheeled Cas out on a stretcher, but Dean saw the white sheet trailing on the ground.  One of them tried to tell him where they were going and asked if he needed to come with them, or if they could call anyone for him, but there was nobody else Dean wanted to see but Cas.  Eventually, they left.  

What could have been a few minutes or a few hours later, Dean rose and walked inside the empty apartment.  He headed into the kitchen and put the pancakes back in the freezer, opting for a breakfast of alcohol instead.  Walking to the window, he opened the curtain and looked out at the cloudy sky.

_“I just want to know, why her?”_ he heard Cas’s voice in his head.

“ _Sometimes things just happen.  And they happen for a reason, even if we don’t understand it.”_

The memory of that conversation, a couple months ago, made Dean’s heart flip flop.  He knew that now, more than ever, he had to take his own advice.  He would never understand, but he could always hope that Cas was somewhere with Anna, in a better, less hurtful world.  He looked down at the bottle in his hand, and used the windowsill to pop the cap off.

“Goodbye, Cas.”


End file.
